(It's time for...) TOP FIVE IRRATIONAL FEARS!

I know these things will probably never happen, but I also think these things will probably happen. In no particular order except for Number One.

5. MEDIA SCARE RAPIST:
Every time I hear the words: "On the loose!" from newscasters pertaining to a rapist or murderer, I picture a ferral looking bearded bear-man (Kris Kristofferson) in a yellow jumpsuit crashing through my window like Kool-Aid, the very second it's mentioned. In my head it goes like this:

NEWSCASTER: An escaped rapist is still on the loose ---
(pshhhhhhh!!!! - window breaks in my living room)

KRIS KRISTOFERSON-MAN: Grrr! I'm here to rape you!

ME: NO, rape-bear! (Die-thud).


4. CRAZY TIME WARP ME-GETTING-HIT-BY-SOMETHING-HUGE:
Okay, This will probably never happen, but I think about it every single time I cross the street after a bus, a truck or a very fast & large vehicle drives by: 'What if I only think the bus has just passed, but I'm really three seconds ahead of everything else time-wise?' I picture the bus hitting me just as I'm crossing the street. Every time.

3. SHARK HIDDEN UNDER MECHANICAL TRAP DOOR IN DEEP END OF POOL:
This isn't so much of a big scare anymore. Mostly because I haven't made swimming a regular part of my daily routine in a long time. I love the water. I really do. You couldn't get me out of the pool or ocean and night swimming was a huge, huge deal, but there were times when I felt more secure when I had someone in a pool with me. Why? Because of the mechanical trap door that would open in the deep end, releasing the Great White (of course). What got me to have this fear was one of my sister's surfer friends telling me that sharks roar like lions, and hearing it underwater is basically the aural equivalent of a night terror. Oddly enough today, I wouldn't mind taking a shark dive at all. I would'nt. Just not in a pool. Because that's where they really live.

2. GRAVITY QUITS - WE ALL SHOOT UP INTO THE SKY AND EXPLODE:
I'm no scientist, but I do picture the exploding. All of us. And immediately!

1. SNAKES! SNAKES! SNAKES!:
Coming out of the toilet, jumping up from the garbage can, falling on my head in the garage, waiting to shiv me in the basement, laughing at me as they chew my face off (in the shower when there's shampoo in my eyes), making me fall from a tree as I swing from vine to vine but then one of the 'vines' is actually a snake....you name it. They hate me, have heaps of armies...and are waiting.

So there you have it!
--J.